Aramaic is an ancient Semitic language that
belongs to the Northwest line of Semitic
languages. Known as early as the 9th Century
B.C., Aramaic began as the language of the
Aramaeans. Later, the language was adopted by
many non-Aramaean peoples, including the Jew
after the Babylonian exile. Eventually, Aramiac
was used extensively throughout the Ancient
Near East as the common tongue of merchants
and governments. Although Aramaic and Hebrew
are similar in vocabulary and pronunciation, there
are enough differences to make the two
languages distinct. Many important books of the
Old and New Testament were composed in
Aramaic, and the language is popularly believed
to be the native tongue of Jesus. From the late
5th Century A.D. onwards, Aramaic supplanted
Hebrew as the daily language of the Jews. For
instance, the Gemara, the second division of the
Talmud, was written entirely in Aramaic.
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